looks up at me. "Who's Emily?"
I panic. "No one."
"Kendall, you have to trust me with the truth."
Tell him ...
I swallow hard. "Emily is the spirit who lives in my house and ... helps me out."
"I see," he says. "Is she helping you out now?"
I fold my hands together on top of the table, trying not to wring them together. "Yeah, I'm sorry. I only listened to a few of her answers. I really wanted to do this on my own."
He doesn't seem fazed by this at all. Then I remember he deals with kids like me all the time. I only hope I'm one of the ones he actually believes.
"How many answers did Emily assist with?"
"About a dozen," I say.
Swiftly moving his pen across the score sheet, Dr. Kindberg tallies up my results. "You're either very lucky or Emily was giving you the correct answers."
"Seriously?" Why do I feel like dancing? "So how'd I do?"
"Very impressive," he tells me. "You scored in the very high range, Kendall, showing significant psychic ability. Mind you, this is only one measure and we still have a lot of testing to do." He gathers up the cards, straightens them, and places them back into the cardboard container.
My intuition tells me that he sort of thinks I'm full of shit.
"You don't believe me, do you?"
He reaches up and scrubs his left hand through his crewcut. "I'm not here to judge, Kendall. I'm here to test and diagnose and talk and decide the best course of action for you."
Dude thinks I'm completely insane. Oh, right ... I have a spirit that talks to me in my head. Can't exactly prove that to anyone. It's not like any of these adults—except Loreen and maybe Father Massimo—would take me at my word.
We can convince him together, Emily suggests.
How?
I'm here to help you ...
"Let's go back into the office," he says, holding his arm out to escort me. "I'm very impressed with your perception, Kendall. But I'm still concerned that you're hearing voices and getting headaches and physical traumas." He sits at his desk; I sit in the chair.
"It's just Emily most of the time. Unless it's during a ghost investigation. Then I usually pick up the spirits in the area we're in. Sometimes we get EVPs—you know, electronic voice phenomena—that match what the spirits are saying to me."
"And the headaches?"
I shrug. "The headaches mostly warn me when something's up. Like when I first met Emily. Turns out she's been with me my whole life and I'm just now able to see her again. When I was little, my parents told me I shouldn't have an imaginary friend, and I believed them."
"She's not imaginary then?" he asks, taking more notes.
"No. She's very real."
He wants proof, Emily observes.
Then let's give it to him.
Emily appears near him, directly behind his chair. "Mention law school to him."
I clear my throat. "Umm, Emily says I should talk to you about law school?"
Dr. Kindberg's clearly taken aback. His mouth drops open. "What about law school?"
Smiling at me, Emily says, "He took the LSAT and applied to six law schools. However, he didn't accept any of the offers he got."
"Why didn't you take any of the acceptances you received?" I ask. "You had, like, five of them, didn't you?"
I love when an adult is speechless, especially a professional one like this who my parents are paying top dollar for. I continue to listen to what Emily is sharing with me. It's sort of a sad story about the young Ken Kindberg.
"Holy crap, Dr. Kindberg. Your mom got cancer and so you didn't go to law school? That's the saddest thing ever." I put my hand to my heart, feeling the skittering beat.
"How ... how do you know that?"
"I don't. But Emily does," I explain. "She says that you nursed your mom through her chemo and radiation treatments for a year before the cancer took her. She ... she ... oh my God. She went a bit crazy, didn't she? Poor woman. Almost like Alzheimer's. She was paranoid about everything and talking to herself. Oh, stop, Emily. I'm so sorry your mom died, Dr. Kindberg." The emotional tension in the room rises like a tsunami. It's like the walls are going to cave in and suffocate me from the sorrow and grief coming from him.
I can tell that the man is blown away. Shock is etched all over his face, although he remains calm. "Very impressive, Kendall. Very few people know of my mother's suffering."
"I'm sorry.